Factor Analysis of the Machiavellian Scale

The paper is a report of a factor analytical study of the Christie and Gies Machiavellian Scale. Subjects were 122 part-time and full-time students from Laurentian University, Canada. Principal components analysis and varimax rotation revealed five psychologically interpretable factors with, latent roots above 1.0. These were named Machiavellian tactics, Pollyanna syndrome, Machiavellian tactics negative, Moral ideal and Machiavellian view. These factors are somewhat different from the factor analytical findings of Christie and Gies, and do not show Machiavellianism as a unitary trait. Some links are drawn between Kohlberg's moral development theory and the present results.